How to convert a WMV file to AVI format on Linux

Last updated on October 8, 2012 by Dan Nanni

Windows Media Video (WMV) is a media container and compression format used for Microsoft's proprietary codecs. As such, there are not many software tools that support the playback of WMV files, besides Microsoft's own products such as Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker. Audio Video Interleaved (AVI), on the other hand, is a container format for various standard multimedia codecs such as DivX, Xvid, MPEG4, etc., and hence enjoys wider software compatibility.

If you would like to convert WMV files to AVI files on Linux, there are several ways to do it.

Method One: FFmpeg

After installing FFmpeg, use the following command to convert WMV to AVI.

$ ffmpeg -i input.wmv output.avi

Method Two: MEncoder

Another method for WMV to AVI conversion is via MEncoder:

$ mencoder input.wmv -o output.avi -ofps 23.976 -ovc lavc -oac copy

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